He ranks second in the series with 20 top-10 finishes. He ranks 10th in top-fives with eight. He is one of nine drivers with at least two poles this year. He ranks 11th in laps led (312) and 10th in miles led (439.122).

After a blown engine at Chicago to start the Chase, Earnhardt has performed as well as anyone in the past seven races, producing three top-five and six top-10 finishes. He is close to matching all the numbers he produced last year, a season that went awry when he suffered a concussion during the Chase.

But he is not one of the 16 drivers who have won a race this year. He needs to win to avoid his fourth winless season in the past five years and fifth in the last seven. He snapped a four-year winless streak with a victory at Michigan last year.

“We want to put forward a good account of ourselves in the Chase because you're in there for a reason and you don't want to be an also-ran,” Earnhardt said. “So we feel like we're doing a lot of good work and getting really close to probably breaking through and getting a win.

“We've only got two more opportunities at it, but (I’m) real pleased with just the speed of the car. “

This is Earnhardt’s third consecutive season in the Chase after two subpar seasons in 2009 and 2010. He and crew chief Steve Letarte have made the Chase in each of their three years together.

“I think our team has continued to get better every season, and it's really showing, especially right now in the results that we've got,” Earnhardt said.

Earnhardt sounds confident and team owner Rick Hendrick has noticed. He wouldn’t count Earnhardt out in the final two races at Phoenix and Homestead. At Phoenix in March, Earnhardt was leading before the final round of pit stops, when he got blocked in on pit road and the slow stop ruined his track position.

“You can see it the way he walks,” Hendrick said about Earnhardt’s confidence. “You can see it when he gets out of the car. You can see it when I talk to him about the race.

“He'll send me a text and say, ‘Man, that car was good. I loved driving that car like that.’ I see it in the way he goes to the racetrack and how he prepares for the race talking to Stevie.”

But more than anything, Hendrick can hear Earnhardt’s confidence in his voice on the team radio during the race.

“Stevie, the two of them, when you talk about combination and you talk about how Chad (Knaus) and Jimmie (Johnson) are, I think a lot of people overlook the relationship those two guys have developed and how well they communicate and how good they're working together. That's about as good as I've ever seen with a crew chief and driver.”